Cassava Smartech, Comviva win Big at AfricaCom and GLOTEL Awards

Cassava Smartech and Comviva have bagged two major awards – Global Telecoms Awards, GLOTEL, in the “Mobile Money Mastery” category and the AfricaCom awards in the “Fintech Innovation” category for EcoCash Merchant Payments solution, powered by mobiquity® Money. The GLOTEL Awards 2018 were presented recently in London, while the AfricaCom Awards were presented during the recently concluded AfricaCom event in Cape Town, South Africa. This is the second consecutive AfricaCom award for both Cassava Smartech and Comviva jointly in the Fintech Innovation category.

EcoCash Merchant Payments extends the success of EcoCash beyond money transfer and airtime recharge. It allows EcoCash users to pay at a variety of merchants ranging from supermarkets to small businesses and overcome the cash crunch and change problem prevalent in Zimbabwe. EcoCash offers multiple options for merchant payments. Customers can pay to merchant by entering merchant code and payment amount in EcoCash app or USSD menu on their mobile phone. Customers can use EcoCash Debit Card to pay at point of sale terminals. For online payments customers can use the virtual card. EcoCash has also launched ‘tap and go’ NFC payments with EcoCash ta service, which equips customers with a NFC sticker and merchants with a portable NFC POS device. All these services have helped to digitize day-to-day payments in Zimbabwe and reduce the dependence on cash.

The impact of EcoCash has been phenomenal – 70% of the Zimbabwe’s National Payment System Volumes are processed through EcoCash, and moving the country one step closer to achieving their goal of being a cashless society.

Commenting on being selected as the winner for the award, Eddie Chibi, the chief executive officer of the Cassava Smartech Zimbabwe, said: “At Cassava Smartech our ambition is to empower lives by offering equitable access to financial services to all the people of Africa. We focus on serving where the need is greatest and this stems from our deeply held aspiration of doing well by doing good. Through EcoCash we are leveraging mobile technology to extend financial inclusion in Zimbabwe and create a cash-light economy.”

Anil Krishnan, the head of Africa Region at Comviva said: “We believe that fintech solutions that cater to the necessities of the people on the ground have the power to bring financial revolution in Africa. EcoCash in Zimbabwe is one such service which has replaced cash and is helping in alleviating the cash problem. With EcoCash Merchant Payments we are proud to be instrumental in accelerating the digital payments growth in Zimbabwe. The award validates our efforts in bringing innovative fintech services to the forefront.”

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